Disney Channel Rebranding Idea
So recently, I've been thinking about Disney Channel getting a major rebranding.
Largely for two reasons.
1#) Disney Mirrorverse. As I was working on it, I kept thinking about where it would air if it was a television series. And I thought of an interesting place for it to air was, believe or not, Disney Channel! You're probably wondering why though since Disney Mirrorverse would be like, TV-14, not exactly what DC usually puts out. But take a look at this.
This is a line-up promo from the Disney Channel of Japan. As you can see, it has a lot of shows and movies you wouldn't really see on the Disney Channel here in the states. It's clear that they're bringing much more diversity to their programming, specifically when it comes to age ranges. And I figured this new Disney Channel rebrand would do that. Having programming that can cater to all demographics.
2#) The new Disney animated series Dragon Strikers, which will be premiering next month.
You would expect this series to being airing on Disney Channel, right?
Since pretty much all of Disney's animated shows from the last 9 years have been exclusively running there.
Plus, the show is airing on Disney Channel internationally.
But here in the states, it's gonna be premiering and running on Disney XD!
I don't think this is controversial when I say that Disney XD just needs to fucking die already.
It has literally no purpose anymore.
Its literally why it no longer exists in most of the world, except for The United States and Poland!
Not helping is its history.
The channel's existence is pretty much a dark spot in Disney's television history.
Disney XD was purely created out of misogyny.
Since the higher ups at Disney believed that Disney Channel was more for girls, due to it having a considerably higher female viewership when compared to Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network.
So their answer to that "dilemma" was to create an all-new channel made exclusively for boys.
Plus having to slaughter a channel with an actual meaningful purpose (and was still doing largely fine as it was) in order to do so!
And looking back at its early marketing, it's so clear just how misguided and desperate Disney XD really was.
With how extreme everything needed to be.
While Disney XD started off strong, it would gradually start to wither by the time the 2010s rolled around.
The original shows they were offering just didn't really leave much of an impact on people nor interested them that much.
Hell, to this day, I still hear people talk more about the shows Disney Channel had than Disney XD!
People had their favorites of course like...
But they just never reached the same levels of popularity and memorability like Disney Channel.
Not helped by the fact that Disney XD was a pay television channel, meaning that it wasn't automatically available like most TV channels for kids with cable packages.
If you wanted Disney XD, you would have to pay for it.
And to a good chunk of people, that just wasn't all that enticing.
But Disney XD became especially detrimental to the animated shows of Disney.
Look at every animated show that had its entire run on Disney XD.
None of them lasted longer than two seasons.
Kick Buttowski: Suburban Daredevil: 2 seasons.
Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja: 2 seasons.
The 7D: 2 seasons.
Pickle & Peanut: 2 seasons.
Penn Zero: Part Time Hero: 2 seasons.
And they were the lucky ones.
All the other original shows only lasted ONE season!
Tron Uprising, Motorcity, Billy Dilley's Super-Duper Subterranean Summer!
And things got even more baffling in the mid-2010s.
In 2014, Disney decided to move all the original animated shows that were currently airing on Disney Channel to Disney XD.
Gravity Falls, Wander Over Yonder, and Phineas and Ferb.
This was done in order to solidify Disney XD as an boys channel and help boost ratings.
Since there's unfortunately a mindset in the industry that animation is exclusively for boys.
This didn't work as well as they thought it would.
For example, Gravity Falls did get good ratings on the channel, it was significantly lesser when compared to its time on Disney Channel.
But things got even worse in the late 2010s and early 2020s.
Now things didn't start off bad at first.
Starting with Tangled: The Series, Disney would start running their animated shows exclusively on Disney Channel again.
Moving shows that originally premiered on Disney XD to Disney Channel.
DuckTales, Star vs. The Forces of Evil, Big Hero 6: The Series, and Milo's Murphy Law.
But in 2020, for some God-forsaken reason, Disney decided to move DuckTales and Big Hero 6 back to Disney XD for their final seasons.
'cause like, why?
What was the purpose of doing that?
A few days ago, I stumbled upon an interview from longtime animation veteran and the co-creator of Phineas and Ferb and Milo's Murphy Law Dan Povenmire from around May 2020.
There he briefly talked about MML's treatment by Disney.
And he made one thing very much clear.
Pretty much all the creatives (specifically on the animation side of things) HATED Disney XD!
And it's not hard to see why.
Their original animated shows were forced to be stuck on a channel that only a minority had.
And even then, the shows only got the bare minimum marketing and promotion.
Not helped by the heavy merchandising pressure Disney constantly pushed on them.
Hell, Dan said himself that Disney XD was basically "a bastard stepchild".
So yeah, with all that said, you're also probably wondering why the hell Disney is putting their newest animated series on a channel that has long stayed past its prime and relevance.
Once again, it only exists in two countries now.
But for this rebrand, Disney XD would FINALLY be put down.
As for Disney Channel itself, this rebrand would see a wide variety of programming.
From animated to live-action.
I believe one of the biggest draws of this rebrand, besides just the variety of shows it would possess, would be the fact that it would feature of shows that famously still aren't on Disney Plus or have any real legal means to watch them.
Marsupilami, Aladdin: The Series, The Weekenders, Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, House of Mouse, Lloyd in Space, The Legend of Tarzan, W.I.T.C.H., A.T.O.M., Get Ed, The Buzz on Maggie, Yin Yang Yo!, and much more.
As for some of the programming blocks this rebrand would see.
Disney Junior (everyday except for Saturdays and Sundays from 6-11): The standard little kids block, featuring broadcasts of their old and new preschool shows.
Marvelous Mondays (every Monday from 11-2): A programming block featuring Marvel animated shows from all across the decades.
The Disney Afternoon (everyday except for Saturdays and Sundays from 3-6): A reboot of the classic programming block, featuring a rotating roster of animated shows from the original Disney Afternoon run (alongside other 90s animated shows like The Little Mermaid and Marsupilami) and the late 2010s-2020s.
On a Sunday Far, Far Away (every Sunday from 2-5): A programming block featuring Star Wars animated series.
One Saturday Morning (every Saturday from 9-1): A reboot of the classic programming block, featuring new episodes of their current animated shows and reruns of their shows from the the late-1990s and early-2000s.
Worldwide Wednesdays (every Wednesday from 11-2): A programming block showcasing the animated foreign co-productions of Disney like Stitch!, the four European-made Marsupilami shows, Spirou and Fantasio, Dude, That's My Ghost!, Doraemon, Rolling with the Ronks, and Harry and Bunnie.
Action Quest (every Saturday from 7-12): A programming block featuring the action-oriented programming of the channel, along with new episodes of Dragon Strikers, Miraculous Ladybug, and Disney Mirrorverse.
Disney/ABC/Fox Rewind (every night from 6-6): A programming block showcasing the classic sitcoms and animated shows of Disney Channel, ABC and Fox.
The Wonderful World of Disney (every Friday from 8-12): A reboot of the classic movie programming block, where two movies are played back-to-back.
And to wrap this up, another big draw of the network would be it's promo and bumpers.
Largely because it would see the characters from the animated shows actually crossing over with each other.
Similar to what Kids WB! and Cartoon Network did with their own bumpers.
The setting would be the real-life Walt Disney Animation Studios in Burbank, California.
Yeah, like the old Cartoon Network bumpers of the late 1990s and early 2000s, these bumpers/shorts would be live-action animation hybrids.
In terms of how the characters would be depicted.
-Mickey Mouse adjacent characters would all be in the same classic style, though they would have their own unique quirks. Like Huey, Dewey and Louie wearing their outfits from DuckTales reboot, and Max and P.J. being teenagers like in A Goofy Movie.
-All the characters from the five Marsupilami shows would be associated to each other (sometimes in fun ways like Norman and Bring M. Backalive being brothers) and Marsupilami himself having both the personality of his Disney counterpart, and the family of most of his other iterations.
-The Lion Guard characters would be in the classic Lion King style.
-The Marvel characters would be in a generalized style.
-The 101 Dalmatian Street characters would be in the style as 101 Dalmatians: The Series.
-The American Dragon: Jake Long characters would be back in their Season 1 designs (though most of them would have their outfits of Season 2), and the characters introduced in season 2 would be redesigned to fit the same style.
Well that's all for now!
I hoped you guys enjoyed it
